Decline of the high art of metal album covers

Well, not to judge a book by its cover and I know itís only a minor gripe, but there is something seriously lacking in the aesthetics of cover sleeve design, lettering, band names, imagery and so forth with the newer generation of metal bands. Even the resurgence of old school bands are kind of lacking in that department. Everything seems to be slapped together on a computer with no real sense of wanting to capturing some sort of spirit embodied in the music.

Old artists like Dan Seagrave or Necrolord worked wonders back in the day. They really got as close as one could to making Death Metal in a visual form.

Iím even partial to the old school methods of (?) stencilled, white or red on black approach which was particularly favourable by bands in their demo period. Check out the style used by Von or Profanatica even to this day.

The other high point of cover art would be the dark ultra-minimalist photography favoured by Ildjarn or Darkthrone in their classic era (you know the one I mean).

The dark green backgrounds work well as an alternative to black. Minimal with the cryptic stencil has some potential for longevity.

Maybe the explicitly satanic or gory cartoony stuff was no longer an attention getter. Christ and nuns and gore were eventually politically and socially safe targets. Only the newly powerless majority would protest but they had grown silent during the peak political correctness years.

Maybe the explicitly satanic or gory cartoony stuff was no longer an attention getter. Christ and nuns and gore were eventually politically and socially safe targets. Only the newly powerless majority would protest but they had grown silent during the peak political correctness years.

Since when do old school death metal albums necessarily fulfill that criterion anyway? Most of the best death metal album art (and metal album art in general) has a cavernous graveyard feel without over-the-top cartoonish gore and blasphemy. That isn't to say that I don't like that kind of art as well but I don't think the change of style has to do with people getting bored with shock value.

The same thing is happening with movies. People are really into that computer art look right now for some reason and that's why so many movies are almost entirely CGI.

Of course it doesn't affect my opinion on a band's music but I don't think it compliments it. I have a hard time understanding how slick shiny computer-made graphics invoke a sense of morbidity. It's a "modern" look that shouldn't have any place in an underground genre that thrived in the late 80s/early 90s.

Photoshopped artwork is also pretty lame and a lot of bands who have that kind of cover art seem to do a pretty bad job at it (or maybe I just don't like the look of photoshop art).

The worst thing is when classic albums get reissues with CGI artwork. Carbonized's For the Security has one of the worst reissue covers I've ever seen. Do labels/bands do that to try and appeal to a modern fanbase?

I have found that, in general, there is a fairly close correspondence between the artistic quality of an album cover and its music. Although there are of course many exceptions. One particularly striking one for me is The Silence of December by Deinonychus, fairly mediocre album with one of the most beautiful covers ever made.

Paolo Girardi is the master of cover art these days. So happy that others have mentioned him already. His work with Blasphemophagher is breathtaking and majestic and violent and blasphemous and FUCKING AWESOME.